It’s that time of year again. It’s the time when a lot of us set New Year’s Resolutions and take stock of our jobs, our income, and our life. This year we were helped along in this process by the Great Resignation, an unprecedented time where many employees switched careers or jumped jobs for better opportunities. As we move into 2022, what resources should you take advantage of to help your career keep moving forward?
Career Tools You Can Use in 2022
Career development is crucial if you want to achieve a better lifestyle or a job that makes you happy. There are a number of ways you can do this.
First, you can see if there is a mentoring program available in your current job. Mentors provide advice and support to their peers and are proven resources to help you achieve your goals. One tip to consider? If you’ve been eyeing a job up the ladder in your current position, why not ask someone nearer to that rung if they would serve as your mentor. For example, if you’re a junior-level developer striving to become a better programmer, why not ask a senior developer if they would be willing to mentor you?
Speaking of junior developers, we know there are a lot of new engineers coming into the field. It’s hard to break into tech, so consider some of the free resources that SkillCrush suggests here to expand your skills. There are also free coding resources such as CodeAcademy or edX. You can also go here if you want 10 free coding classes to get you started in the field.
But what about the seasoned engineer? What career resources are available to them? The answer to this of course depends on your goals. For example, most of us would say our career goals have something to do with financial stability and freedom. To achieve this, however, you need to know how to manage your personal finances. Good news! There are several free online classes that will help you manage your money. For example:
- The Core Four of Personal Finance on Udemy.
- Personal and Family Financial Planning on Coursera.
- Personal Finance Planning on edX.
There are also classes that could quickly add skills to your resume that are unrelated to programming, but still very useful, such as these tutorials:
What about apps to help you manage stress in your job? You could pick up a free app like Gratefulness to help you stay more positive about the daily grind. You can try Headspace free for 14-days. Headspace is a meditation app that helps you exercise, clear your mind, and sleep without worrying about your next deployment. The Mindful Living app is another free resource to help you simplify your life and better manage daily stress.
If you’re a self-taught developer, and many of us are, there are several great career resources that can help you stay current in the field. For example, check out:
- The subreddit thread in the Reddit community is devoted to learning to code. The threads are full of ideas, suggestions, and resources.
- Stack Overflow is of course a massive resource for any of those how-to questions plaguing the developer community. The chances are quite high that you already use this tool, but we didn’t want to assume…
- Hacker News is a daily curated feed of the most current information coming out of the developer community today.
- Then there is the Quora programming community. The site was originally used mostly by Silicon Valley types, but over the years Quora has grown in popularity. It’s still a great resource for developers.
- There’s also the Slashdot threads that are both interesting and informative.
But the number one resource for IT professionals is Blackstone Talent Group. Now is the time to consider a refresh on your professional career. We offer our services as a free resource for engineers seeking a second set of eyes on your resume, advice on the market, and even our best recommendations for how to pull off a great interview. Start the conversation with our team and take the next step in your career.